


Intersection of Ways

by iodhadh



Series: Ways and Roads [1]
Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Antivan Crows, Canon-Typical Violence, Isabela's Friend Fiction Could Never, M/M, Murderflirting, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 04:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12741045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: A hunt for a group of Tevinter slavers has led Fenris across the border into Antiva. There he finds Zevran, on the run from a failed attempt to ambush a company of Antivan Crows. As it turns out, a slave's vendetta and an assassin's war have an unexpected way of meeting in the middle—and Zevran is surprisingly good company, for someone who never shuts up or stops flirting.





	Intersection of Ways

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhovanel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhovanel/gifts).



> Dear god how on earth have I never put these two in a room together before. This was some of the most fun I have ever had writing banter, and that's saying a lot.
> 
> Thanks are due to Katie, you were an excellent sounding board.
> 
> Enjoy!

Seleny wasn’t a large city—not by Antivan standards, and certainly not when compared to Kirkwall or the bustling metropolises of Tevinter. But it was still far more crowded than Fenris cared to deal with on that morning.

He shouldered his way through the throng of servants and messengers and housewives doing their shopping, trusting to his dark armour and the utilitarian greatsword strapped across his back to clear a space for him. So far it seemed to be working: the citizens of Seleny were giving him a wide berth, or as wide a berth as they reasonably could on a busy street lined with shops and market stalls. That suited him just fine. He had business of his own.

He had tracked a group of slavers across the border from Tevinter—a handful of men on horseback, more on foot, and a convoy of young slaves, bought for a pittance on the markets of Perivantium. Why they had been brought to Antiva, he couldn’t say: far more often the caravans went the other way, stealing people out of Antiva—or Nevarra, or the Free Marches—and dragging them in chains to the Imperium. But he didn’t need to know why they were here to know how they would operate.

There would be a contact, a buyer, a group of guards. They would meet somewhere—within the city limits, if Fenris had tracked them right. And he would find them, and then he would kill the slavers and the buyers both.

But thus far he hadn’t had much luck in finding their trail. The people he had spoken to had been friendly enough at first—or as friendly as they ever were, when faced with an armoured elven stranger marked by lyrium tattoos—but to a one they had all clammed up as soon as it became apparent just who and what he was looking for. They knew something, and it was something that made them nervous enough that none of them would talk. And Fenris was getting frustrated, which wasn’t helping either: people already flinched from him too easily when he wasn’t snapping and irritable.

And so he had been reduced to prowling the streets, looking for some sign of his quarry in the bustle of the marketplace. Seleny was beautiful—all arching bridges and graceful sweeping canals, built from white limestone and intricate patterned brickwork—but at the moment it was mostly just proving inconvenient, and Fenris wanted it to get out of his way.

Midday came and went, and still he had seen no sign of them. Fighting the urge to swear, he stopped at a market stall to buy something to eat and consider his next move. If he was going to have to search the entire city, at least he could do it on a full stomach.

That was when someone slipped out of the crowd around him and casually took his arm in theirs.

Acting on instinct, Fenris wrenched himself away and whirled on the intruder, already reaching for his sword. He was halfway to drawing it when he realized, abruptly, that the man in front of him was familiar.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I might ask you the same question,” said Zevran Arainai, friend of Isabela, ally of the Champion of Kirkwall, and one-time member of the Antivan Crows. He smiled winsomely. “That, however, is a concern for later. For the moment I would be much obliged if you would play along.”

Fenris hesitated for just long enough that the owner of the market stall spoke up, the warning in his tone suggesting he was closing his hand around the baton he no doubt kept beneath the counter. “Is there a problem, messere?”

Another moment, and then: “No,” Fenris said, and made himself relax. “We’re fine.” He reached into his belt pouch and laid a handful of silvers on the counter next to the bits he had paid for his flatbread. “My thanks.”

He turned back to Zevran. While he had been speaking to the merchant the assassin had swiftly stowed his weapons in hidden sheaths that Fenris knew to look for only because he had seen Isabela use similar ones in years past; now Zevran was pulling his fine blond hair from a tight braid, letting it tumble down around his shoulders and obscure his profile. He flashed Fenris a brilliant smile, taking his arm again, and with a light but insistent pressure directed him to begin walking down the street.

“It was Fenris, yes? I don’t believe we were ever properly introduced,” Zevran said in a conversational tone. “It’s been some years since I saw you last. I trust you have been well?”

Fenris was distracted with trying to restrain his usual aggressive pace to the leisurely stroll the assassin obviously wanted to keep. “Tolerably,” he said. “I’ve been busy.”

Zevran laughed lightly. “Haven’t we all, my friend, haven’t we all.”

At another subtle tug from Zevran, they stopped to linger in front of another market stall, this one selling little plaster replicas of sculptures from around the city. Fenris stood silently, awkward and on edge, as the assassin examined the statuettes and ran his fingers over the wares. The merchant smiled tolerantly at them, then turned back to her other customer.

A slight shift in Zevran’s stance was all the warning Fenris had before the assassin turned his face into his neck with a lover’s closeness. He stiffened, but Zevran didn’t kiss him: he simply held himself there, a facsimile of intimacy, as over his head Fenris caught sight of a stir of movement in the street behind them. Letting his eyes follow the pattern, he was able to pick out four people who the crowds seemed very intent on letting pass uncontested—all of them moving with the purposeful grace of hunters, all of them scanning the street for suspect movement, and none of them giving him and Zevran a second glance.

“Let me guess,” Fenris murmured, his lips barely moving. “You killed another guild master.”

Zevran laughed lowly; Fenris could feel the tickle of breath on his collar. “Nothing quite so dramatic this time, I assure you.”

The Crows had disappeared into the crowd. They started moving again, only the tightness of Zevran’s hand on Fenris’s arm betraying his tension. “I merely made an unfortunate error in my timing,” he continued, at a slightly more normal volume. “I had thought to interrupt an exchange of slaves, but I misjudged the number of Crows who would be present in the room. An amateur error on my part.”

Fenris paused. “Slaves?” he said, his voice very even.

Zevran waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, yes. Children, you know, brought in by some Tevinter slavers’ caravan to be sold into indentured servitude with the Crows. Fantastically illegal, of course, but that has never stopped the Crows before,” he said. He heaved a tragic sigh. “I had thought it would be a good chance for an ambush, but I miscalculated. Now I’ll have to catch up with my former comrades on road if I wish to have the slightest chance of successfully murdering them all in cold blood.”

They had by this point turned off onto a quieter side street, and the assassin’s grip on his arm had relaxed. Fenris shook him off, turning to give him a long, speculative look. Zevran looked right back, one eyebrow cocked expectantly.

“You know,” Fenris said at last, “perhaps we might be able to help each other out.”

* * *

Zevran had insisted on taking him to a coffee house to discuss their plan—one, he said, that he knew would be safe to speak in. Fenris, remembering how quickly he had taken advantage of the opportunity to get Hawke and Isabela alone the first time they’d met, had immediately pegged him with a suspicious look.

“This wouldn’t be the sort of ‘coffee house’ that rents its rooms by the hour?” he had said.

Zevran had seemed to find that hilarious. “No, my friend, it truly is a coffee house,” he had said, after he stopped laughing. “Not to say that I would be adverse to the idea! But you are a man who appreciates directness, yes? I assure you, when I proposition you I will make my intentions clear.”

Fenris had simply raised an eyebrow. “When?”

Zevran had just laughed again and started off down the street.

Now they sat at an enclosed wooden booth in a back street coffee house, the quiet sounds of the other patrons muffled by a linen privacy screen the serving girl had drawn for them after she delivered their order and a pair of porcelain cups. Zevran poured coffee from a wrought glass carafe, first for Fenris and then himself. Fenris lifted the cup, the ceramic unexpectedly smooth against his calloused fingers, and sipped cautiously at the drink. He had had coffee before, but not for many years, and had never been especially fond of it.

Zevran was obviously more so. He inhaled the steam slowly, then took a sip, letting out a satisfied sigh as he set his cup down. “There,” he said. “Now we may speak freely. To business, then.”

“To business,” Fenris agreed.

“So. You are after the slaves,” Zevran said. He tapped his fingers against the lacquered wood of the table. “I can only surmise that you meant to ambush the Tevinters before or during the handover. You were not aware of who their contacts were, no?”

“No,” Fenris said. “No one would speak to me once I entered the city. The Crows’ doing, I assume.”

Zevran hummed assent, nodding thoughtfully. “Unfortunately the exchange has already occurred at this point—that was the meeting I so unwisely attempted to interrupt. But one of the advantages of being a former Crow myself is that I know all the movements they think so surreptitious. I know they are bound for Antiva City; I can find them again easily enough.”

“You think we could catch up to them.”

Zevran lifted his coffee to his lips with a coy smile. “I do,” he said.

Fenris was silent for a moment, raising his own cup and taking a slow sip of the drink as he considered the most likely direction the slavers would take. “And what if we took a detour first?”

Zevran set his cup down on its saucer with an interested click. “What did you have in mind?”

“I should clarify,” Fenris said, “that I am not merely in the business of freeing slaves. I am in the business of terrorizing the slave trade of Tevinter. If a rescue is all we can reasonably arrange, that is in itself more than worthwhile, but I have to admit that it would not entirely satisfy me.”

Zevran’s eyes had lit up with a delighted sort of violence. “You wish to go after the Tevinters.”

“Yes.”

Zevran sipped at his coffee with a calculating expression. “With the slaves in their possession, it should take the Crows a few days to make it back to Antiva City. River barges do not move swiftly, after all, and they will have to stop at night or risk too many escapes. If you can find the Tevinters quickly—”

“Which I can,” Fenris interjected.

“Then we should be able to catch up to the Crows well before they make it back to the city,” Zevran said, nodding. “Especially if we can find horses somewhere.”

“I tracked the slavers across the border from Tevinter,” Fenris said. “Some of them were mounted.” He finished off the last few bitter mouthfuls of his coffee, setting the cup down and getting to his feet. “I suggest we get going.”

* * *

They found the Tevinters camped on the road a few hours north of Seleny, making their way towards a group of holding caves Fenris knew about in the Hundred Pillars. Their fire was banked, only the dim glow of coals showing through the darkness of the night, but it was enough to make out the shapes of several tents, a few dozing horses, and the couple of men they had left on guard.

“Well done,” Zevran murmured, peering down at the slavers’ camp from their vantage point on a nearby hill. “I’m impressed that you knew where to find them.”

“I’ve been doing this for five years,” Fenris said.

“So you have,” Zevran said. “In that case I shall defer to your expertise. What is our plan of attack?”

Fenris checked the set of his sword on his back. “We kill them.”

“Well, yes, I had assumed as much,” Zevran said. “I simply wondered if there was more to it than that.”

“No. I don’t need a strategy, I just needed to catch them,” Fenris said, and stood, starting down the hill.

He could hear Zevran scrambling to his feet after him. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” the assassin said.

Fenris ignored him. He drew his sword and charged the camp.

One of the guards managed to get out half a warning before Fenris fell on him, knocking aside his hastily raised shield and gutting him right through his leather armour. His partner turned, letting out a shout of dismay as she saw what had become of her companion. “We’re under attack!” she yelled, drawing a pair of daggers. Fenris advanced on her as around him the camp came alive in scattered disarray.

Zevran joined him a beat later, just in time to knife a slaver in the throat as he threw himself towards Fenris. The man dropped to his knees with a choked gurgle and a spray of blood as Zevran yanked his blade back. The assassin flashed Fenris a smile, and Fenris felt an answering grin tug at his lips as he parried two daggers at once on the flat of his blade.

More slavers poured out of their tents, and Fenris summoned up the lyrium burn with a flash of white light. His opponents staggered back with a cry, and that was all the opening he needed. With a burst of speed he began tearing his way through them one by one.

The fight was over quickly. Over the years that Fenris had been hunting slavers, the Tevinters had gotten wary of him, hiring mercenaries and posting better guards—but even with those precautions they always seemed to underestimate him, and normally he was alone. The financier of this group had barely put in the effort at all. They didn’t even have a mage—not that that would have stopped him either.

When the last body hit the ground, Fenris released the lyrium glow and turned back to Zevran. “There, you see?” he said, deadpan. “Nothing to worry about.”

Zevran laughed. “Indeed not,” he said, wiping his knives on a dead slaver’s tunic. He winked, the shining reflection of one honey-brown eye briefly disappearing in the darkness. “You have some very impressive talents, my friend.”

Fenris stacked the bodies in a pile, their colours prominently displayed as a warning to any other Tevinters who might pass this way. Zevran unhitched the horses and led them away from the smell of death, then ransacked the camp, rejoining Fenris with a packet of papers and a dark glass bottle in his hands.

“Bills of sale,” he said, passing the papers over, “and this is Antivan brandy. Quite a nice one, too. The Crows must have given it to them as a negotiation gift.”

Fenris leafed through the bills, slowly working out their contents. Hawke had taught him to read years ago—had pushed books on him at random and scribbled out words on the back of posters stolen from the Hanged Man while Isabela leaned over her shoulder and cackled—but he had never been any good at it, and it had been a long time since he’d had reason to do much reading at all.

Still, he knew enough to puzzle out a receipt. These ones confirmed what he had already suspected: the children who had been brought to the Crows had been sold into slavery by their own families.

He had seen it before, of course. But it never got any easier.

Zevran watched in silence as, one by one, Fenris fed the bills into the remnants of the fire. When the last of the pages had burned to ash he kicked dirt over it and stamped out the remaining coals. Then he turned to Zevran and said, “Let’s go. We should make sure that brandy doesn’t go to waste.”

* * *

They woke the next day as dawn was breaking. Zevran seemed to sense that Fenris wasn’t interested in talking just yet, and they made ready to leave in efficient but companionable silence. Fenris passed over a sausage pasty from his supplies, and in exchange Zevran tossed him a winter apple, which he ate in swift bites around saddling his horse. He had chosen a sedate, sturdy mount that hadn’t flinched when he had experimentally let his fingers crackle with lyrium; Zevran’s was lighter of foot, almost frisky, but well-suited to an assassin whose fighting style relied on speed and sudden strikes. The rest they turned loose to run wild in the Antivan countryside.

They were on the road by the time the sun had cleared the horizon, Zevran taking the lead as they backtracked towards Seleny and the River Tellari. Fenris was glad enough to let him: he had ridden enough in recent years to be able to handle himself, if inexpertly, but he didn’t much like it. The assassin, of course, seemed perfectly at ease—certainly enough to start chatting as the sun rose in the sky. He didn’t seem bothered that Fenris’s replies were mostly monosyllabic.

They had reached the turn for the River Tellari road when Zevran said, “I must admit, I am curious about your story. Have you actually spent the last five years hunting slavers?”

Fenris snorted. “Is that really so hard to believe?” he said.

“Well, no,” Zevran said, “not truly. I ask only because you seemed quite attached to the Champion of Kirkwall when I saw you last. You are no longer in her company?”

“After the Gallows we thought it best to split up,” Fenris said. “The templars were hunting us and we were too obvious as a group. Though I did stay with her for some few months,” he added. “So I suppose it hasn’t _quite_ been five years hunting.”

“Hawke was a lovely woman,” Zevran said, his voice just a touch nostalgic. “Where is she nowadays?”

Fenris shrugged. “Isabela would know better than I. You could ask her, if you like—I’m to meet her on the coast in a week with whatever slaves I can free.”

“Perhaps I will,” Zevran said. “It would be good to see Isabela again.”

“I’m sure it would,” Fenris said, very dry.

Zevran laughed again. He did that rather a lot, Fenris had noticed; he had a nice laugh.

“Of course, there are many reasons it would be good to see Isabela,” he agreed, glancing sidelong at Fenris. “But in the meantime, your company is quite fine on entirely its own merits.”

Fenris just raised his eyebrows at that and opted not to comment. “What about you?” he said. “You were killing Crows when they chased you to Kirkwall. You’re killing Crows now, or attempting to. Did you stop at all in the interim?”

“Oh, no,” Zevran said, quite cheerfully. “My war has been ongoing for many years.”

“Are they truly that relentless?”

Zevran blinked at him, then let out a chuckle. “I see I must relieve you of a misapprehension,” he said. “It is not they who are the aggressors in this hunt. Oh, certainly, they objected to me showing my face in Antiva after having snubbed them so, but I had only returned in the first place because I wished to take my vengeance on them. And in that, I am not yet done.”

“In that case you are remarkably dedicated to your pursuit,” Fenris said.

Now it was Zevran’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Five years doing your best to put the entire Tevinter slave trade out of business?” he said. “I could say the same of you.”

“I don’t like slavers,” Fenris said flatly.

“No, I can see that,” Zevran said quietly. “You are Tevinter yourself, yes?”

Fenris said nothing, his hands tightening on the reins, but that in itself was enough of a confirmation.

For a long moment there was silence between them, interrupted only by the sound of their horses’ hooves thudding on the dirt road, and then Zevran sighed lightly. “In truth, I can understand your vendetta quite well,” he said. “My reasons for hunting the Crows are much the same, after all.”

Abruptly Fenris made the connection. Indentured servitude, Zevran had said. And he had once been a Crow.

“You were a slave,” he said.

“Oh, it was nothing quite so dramatic as that,” Zevran said, flapping a hand dismissively. “A great many of the Crows began as children sold into their service, after all, even the leaders. It is as good a living as any.”

The rage that reared up in Fenris’s throat at that was almost surprising in its intensity. Almost—but not quite.

“When I have finished with Tevinter,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady, “I might see my way to helping you end the Crows.”

Zevran only laughed at that, but there was a warmth to his eyes that Fenris had never seen on him before.

* * *

It was just past noon the next day when they came across signs that a barge had put in on the bank of the river. It wasn’t much—just scuffed earth, the remains of a fire pit, and a few footprints—but it was enough to know their quarry had passed.

“And more importantly,” Zevran said, “they stopped here only last night. We are catching up.”

Fenris slid from the saddle, trusting his horse to stay by Zevran’s, and made a circuit of the camp for useful signs. For the most part it seemed entirely normal, and he was just about to mount up again when he spotted the traces of a minor scuffle in the grass next to the river. Someone had fought there, and well enough to cause trouble.

There was a child-sized footprint in the mud.

Fenris looked up, judging the distance to the trees that bordered the opposite side of the road, and started for the woods.

“Where are you going?” Zevran said, dismounting and taking the reins of both the horses. Fenris made no answer. The assassin let out a noise that was halfway between amused and exasperated, and called after him, “I’ll just wait here, then, shall I?”

Fenris didn’t bother replying. He had found another print in the dirt, and evidence of swift flight by a small body. Keeping alert for snapped branches and scuffed earth, he started into the trees, following the trail.

It was muddied somewhat, crisscrossed by other prints that must have been the Crows searching for their escaped captive—but Fenris had had quite a lot of experience with tracking by now, and the Crows obviously weren’t used to moving in the wilds. And why should they be? There were few targets for assassination in the backwoods of Antiva.

Eventually they must have given up, deciding one child wasn’t worth the time lost searching, and the trail got easier to follow. Fenris pressed on, every so often dropping to one knee to look into the woods from a child’s perspective before choosing the most likely route. There was little to go on, but he had been guessing right so far, and hadn’t yet lost the track.

He came finally to a tangle of brambles. Some of them had been bent by rough passage, and he crouched down, peering into it. He couldn’t see all the way into its depths, but there was certainly space for a child to hide in there.

“Hello?” he called. “Is someone in there?”

The air seemed to contract around him, the birdsong briefly stilling, but he heard nothing.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.” And then, with a flash of inspiration, he switched from Trade to the Tevene slave cant he had once been most familiar with. “You can come out. It’s safe.”

There was a long pause, and then the brambles shifted. Hastily Fenris backed up, keeping his hands low and open, and moments later a child crawled out of the bushes—an elven girl, a small and skinny eight at a guess, though she could have been younger—crouched and poised to flee and staring at him with round brown eyes.

Fenris made no move to approach her. He had never in his memory been particularly good with children—had no memory of ever being a child—but he had dealt enough with rescued slave children to at least know what not to do.

“I’m called Fenris,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Another hesitation, and then: “Eligia,” she said, her voice small and piping and fiercely defiant.

How fitting, Fenris thought. A runaway slave whose name meant “one who chooses.”

“I’m looking for the people you escaped from,” he said. “Do you know where they were going?”

“To Antiva City,” she said. “Are you going to kill them?”

Some might have thought he should have lied to her, but Fenris had never believed in shielding slaves from the truth, not even the children. They deserved their vengeance as much as anyone. And so he said, “Yes. I also killed the slavers who sold you to them.”

Her eyes, already large, got impossibly rounder. “You killed them?”

“I’m very good at killing people,” he said, deadpan. “I was once a slave as well. My master trained me as his bodyguard, but I escaped, many years ago, and killed him. Now I hunt slavers.”

Eligia scrambled towards him, her entire body thrumming with tension. “Are you going to get everyone out? Are you going to get all of us out?”

“You got yourself out,” he said. “I’m just going to help.”

He reached out a hand to her, and she took it, fingers clutching tightly to his.

They came out of the woods some fifteen minutes later—Eligia balanced on Fenris’s hip with her arms wound around his neck—to find Zevran looking bored as he tossed a knife back and forth between his hands in increasingly complex patterns. He caught it one last time and straightened at Fenris’s approach, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline at the new addition to their company.

“Well,” he said, “this was certainly not what I expected from you haring off into the wilds alone.”

“Her name is Eligia,” Fenris said, moving to reclaim his horse. “Eligia, this is Zevran Arainai. He’s a friend of mine.”

“Are we friends?” Zevran said, utterly gleeful. “How fantastic. I knew my charms would win you over eventually. It was simply inevitable.”

Fenris ignored him, even as Eligia stuffed a fist into her mouth to muffle her giggles. He put the girl on his horse, mounting behind her and slipping his arms around her ribs to take the reins. “She told me how the Crows have been keeping their camp,” he said. “We can catch up with them tonight if we ride hard.”

For a moment Zevran still just looked gleeful, and Fenris could practically see him holding himself back from the obvious innuendo, but all he said was, “Then by all means, let us do so.”

* * *

They caught up with the Crows in the middle of the night.

They had slowed when they caught sight of the fire in the distance, then stopped at the first place on the road with acceptable cover. Zevran had gone ahead to handle the sentries the Crows no doubt had on guard, while Fenris secured the horses and stowed their packs in the fork of a tree. Eligia had watched him work, her eyes luminous in the reflected light of the moon, her mouth set in a stubborn line.

“You have to stay here,” Fenris had told her, preempting the inevitable argument. “Keep out of sight.”

“I want to help!” she had insisted.

“Help by staying out of the way,” he had said firmly. “You’re too small and too young to fight against the Crows. If you came with me I’d be distracted by keeping you safe, and then I’d have less chance of killing them all.” He had crouched before her, looking her in the eyes. “Stay here. Look after the horses. And if anyone else comes, _hide_. Promise me.”

She had clearly wanted to argue, but just as clearly could see the sense in his words. “I promise,” she had said, reluctantly.

“Good girl,” Fenris had said. “And I promise to bring your friends safely back to you.”

Now, clinging to the shadows and with a dark hood pulled up to hide his hair, Fenris crept up on the camp. Peering down through the trees, he could see that it was much as Eligia had described. The Crows’ river barge—a shallow, awkward thing that they had moored to a sturdy tree on the bank—had nowhere to securely lock their captives at night, so the children had been brought ashore to sleep. They were chained at the centre of the camp next to a slowly dying fire; their captors slept around them, on bedrolls or simply on the ground. Two of the Crows kept watch, sitting in the light of the fire and talking quietly; the rest of their security they trusted to the sentries they had posted in the woods.

Well, that was what assassins were for. Fenris settled down to wait.

It was a tense couple of hours. This sort of patience wasn’t in his nature, but their enemy this time wasn’t an ill-prepared caravan of slavers: it was a full company of Antivan Crows guarding a dozen captives, one of whom had already escaped. Zevran had outlined the necessity of a strategic approach this time, and Fenris had readily agreed. He wasn’t willing to risk the children being yanked from his grasp a second time.

And so he waited in silence, near-motionless, listening intently for the sounds of a struggle in the distance. There was none. Zevran was evidently a very good assassin.

The grey light of false dawn had just begun to touch the horizon when the former Crow appeared beside Fenris, stepping out of the shadows as if he had been there all along. He dropped to a crouch beside him, peering down at the camp below. “Has there been any movement?” he said, near-inaudibly.

“None,” Fenris said, just as low. “Any trouble?”

Zevran shook his head. “They died without a whisper,” he said, sounding very self-satisfied. “I must say, I never get tired of it.”

Fenris saw no need to comment; he felt much the same way about killing slavers. “What do you think our chances are of taking those two by surprise?” he said, tipping his head towards the camp.

“I should be able to sneak up on one of them, at least, if I circle around the other side,” Zevran said. “See if you can get a little closer. You will know, I think, when to strike.”

And then he vanished again, and Fenris began the long slow process of getting as close as he could to the camp without being spotted.

He had made it about as far as he was willing to dare when there was a sudden scuffle and brief shout from the camp. Fenris looked up to see one of the guards toppling slowly to the ground with his throat bleeding out, Zevran standing over him with red-stained knives. The other guard on watch was scrambling to her feet, shouting for her comrades as she drew her own blades. Zevran wasted no time in lunging for her.

The camp was in an uproar. The Crows slept lightly, Fenris saw; within moments most of them were on their feet, grabbing knives from hidden sheaths and stringing bows with fast, practiced movements. Zevran was a whirl of blades at the centre of a maelstrom, felling opponents left and right, but more were converging on him with every moment that passed. He couldn’t keep this up forever.

But he was a powerful distraction—and with all the Crows’ attention focused on him, Fenris had a clear line of attack.

It was plain they weren’t expecting that. Zevran had been hunting them for over a decade, and in that time they had come to know his movements. They had no reason to believe he wouldn’t be alone, and so Fenris was able to take them by surprise; he had torn through three of them before the rest even realized he was there.

It was a vicious fight. The assassins were better trained than the slavers Fenris normally fought, and soon he was speckled with shallow cuts and bloody gashes—some of which, he could tell from the sluggishness of his limbs, had been coated with poison. But unlike the Tevinters, the Crows hadn’t been forewarned about his lyrium-enhanced abilities. The first time he ghosted, his opponent stopped dead to gape at him in astonishment, and Fenris took her head off with a single sweep of his sword. The second time, he slammed into an assassin who had been closing in on Zevran and shoved a hand deep into his ribcage, crushing his heart. By the third time, his enemies were attempting to stay as far away from him as possible—which made them easy prey for Zevran’s knives.

In retrospect, he probably should have expected them to do something underhanded. They were assassins, after all: the Crows didn’t play fair.

Fenris was advancing on the last remaining knot of enemies when there was a rattle of chains and a woman shouted, “Drop your sword!”

He whirled on her, but a sickening lurch in his stomach told him what he would see even before he looked: she had grabbed one of the slaves by the hair and yanked him to his feet, her blade pressing tightly against his throat. There was already a trickle of blood under the knife. The boy couldn’t be older than five.

“Drop your sword!” she repeated. “Do not make me say it again!”

For the barest second Fenris hesitated, torn between his twin desires to kill the slavers and protect their slaves. Then he heard Zevran heave a sigh—and a second later the hilt of a knife was protruding from the woman’s eye. She dropped like a stone.

“Honestly,” Zevran said. “It’s like they forgot they trained me themselves.”

One of the Crows let out a cry of dismay; Zevran took the opportunity to knife him in the throat. Raising his sword, Fenris let the lyrium burn through him, and with a burst of righteous fury he went for the remaining assassins.

Only when the last of the Crows fell did he remember to breathe again. He inhaled shakily, and with a slow exhale let the glow fade from his skin.

Zevran glanced between him and the children—no longer slaves—and wisely decided not to interfere. “Well, that was certainly invigorating, no?” he said lightly. He wiped his knives on the remains of a tunic and started up the hill. “I’ll fetch Eligia, shall I?”

Fenris lowered his sword and slowly approached the children. They flinched back as he drew close, huddling together as well as their chains would allow, but he crouched and made a gentling motion with his hand. “It’s alright,” he said, in the same slave cant he used with Eligia. “You’re safe. I’m going to take these chains off you.”

One of the children—one of the few who was glaring rather than cowering—spoke up. “What’s going to happen to us now?” she said.

“You are not slaves anymore,” Fenris said. “My name is Fenris. I’m going to take you to a friend and she’ll bring you somewhere safe. You’ll never be slaves again.”

There was a stirring of interest among the children, and then the little boy with the cut on his throat said, “That elf… serah Fenris, did he say Eligia?”

“Just Fenris,” Fenris said firmly. “And yes, he did. He’s going to get her, and our horses. We’ll move somewhere else to sleep for the rest of the night.”

Another round of murmuring, and then the boy shuffled forward, holding his ankle out towards Fenris. “Please take the chains off.”

“Gladly,” Fenris said, and brought the hilt of his sword down on the lock.

* * *

The meeting point Fenris had arranged with Isabela was on the south coast, in a secluded cove halfway between Rialto and Antiva City. It was familiar to him, a spot they had used many times before, and one he knew they were unlikely to be interrupted at. The set of his shoulders was relaxed as he waited on the beach with Zevran and the children, watching as the Siren’s Call II come into the bay.

Isabela was immediately apparent, once the ship drew close enough to make out individual people: Fenris half-suspected she had added an even larger plume to her hat since the last time he had seen her. She waved to them, then cupped her hands around her mouth and hollered across the water, “Glad you’re still in one piece! What’s Zevran doing here?”

“Haven’t you heard, my dear?” Zevran yelled back. “I have taken up work as a nanny!”

Isabela’s answering cackle was clearly audible, even as she disappeared from the rail to go back to guiding her ship in.

Fenris waited with the children, finding himself the centre of a nervous huddle. He couldn’t exactly blame them for their trepidation: some of the older ones had a little Trade, but most spoke only Tevene, and they had all been wary of Zevran until Fenris explained that he was no longer a Crow, and had made it his mission to destroy his former order. Now they were faced with an entire ship full of strangers and a thoroughly uncertain future, and they had only Fenris to cling to. He had been intending to go back to Tevinter directly after his meeting with Isabela, but had rapidly revised that plan as it became apparent just how much trouble the children would have communicating without him.

The Siren’s Call II had come in as close as she safely could; now she dropped anchor and put out two rowboats—more than enough for Fenris, Zevran, and a dozen Tevinter children. Isabela came out to meet them, her boot resting on the prow of the leading craft, surveying them imperiously as her crew rowed in.

She leapt down with a splash as the boat scraped against the shore, striding up the beach and stopping before them with her hands planted on her hips, grinning widely at seeing Fenris surrounded by children. “Well, isn’t that just adorable,” she said.

Despite himself, Fenris felt his lips curving up in a smile. “Nice of you to be on time,” he replied.

“Ugh, you’re never going to let that go,” she said. “You stop for _one_ little pitched battle at sea and get taunted about it for the next three years. Can’t a girl catch a break?”

“It’s thoroughly unreasonable, that’s what it is,” Zevran put in.

“Just awful.”

“Unconscionable.”

“And _rude_ ,” Isabela concluded. Then she laughed. “Get over here, you scamp.”

They embraced, Zevran kissing her cheek with a casual affection. Isabela waved him off, poking her finger into the centre of his chestplate. “And how did you get mixed up in this liberation-of-Tevinter business? I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Oh, you know how it goes,” Zevran said. “You’re on the run from a botched ambush when you stumble across a devastatingly muscular elf with beautiful green eyes, and it turns out he’s looking for the very people you just witnessed selling a dozen children to your former employers. As it happens there is quite a happy overlap between hunting slavers and hunting Crows.”

Fenris was not going to comment on Zevran’s description of him. “He is surprisingly tolerable to work with,” he said gravely.

“‘Tolerable?’ Why, Fenris,” Zevran said, sounding delighted, “you say the sweetest things.”

Fenris continued to ignore him. “Shall we get everyone in the boats?” he said to Isabela, then added, “I will be coming back to Kirkwall with you. None of the children speak decent Trade.”

“You’re such a soft touch, Fenris,” Isabela said fondly. “Alright, come on, there’s space for everyone.”

Gently, Fenris chivvied the children down to the boats, helping them to climb aboard and reassuring the smaller ones when they hesitated to approach Isabela’s burly sailors. When all of them were safely aboard, Isabela stepped back into the prow of her boat. Fenris and Zevran were left to take a more ordinary seat in the other craft.

Or Fenris was. Zevran only shook his head when Isabela gestured grandly for him to climb aboard, giving her a flourishing little bow. “I will not be accompanying you, I am afraid,” he said. “I still have my war to wage, after all, and I think I might like to take advantage of the fact that there is a company of Crows now that will not be returning to Antiva City.”

“Aww,” Isabela said, propping her cheek disconsolately on her fist. “That’s a shame. We could have so much fun together. I have a fleet now, you know—I could give you a ship!”

“Alas, I have never had very good sea legs,” Zevran said. “Give Hawke my best when next you see her, won’t you?”

“Oh, fine,” Isabela said. “Go wage your stupid war. I’ll tell her you said hello.”

Zevran turned to Fenris, who was still waiting next to the boat. “How fortuitous it was that we ran into each other, my friend,” the assassin said. “We work well together, no? If you ever have need of an assassin, do come seek me out in Antiva City.” And he held out his hand with a hopeful smile.

For a long moment, Fenris just looked at him. Yes, he thought—fortunate indeed. And wouldn’t it be nice to be the one to leave Zevran off-balance, for once?

“I can do that,” he said.

He stepped forward to clasp Zevran’s hand, crowded into his space, and pulled him into a kiss.

Zevran let out a soft gasp against his mouth, lips parting more in astonishment than anything else, but Fenris was quick to take advantage. It had been a very long time since he had kissed anyone, but he found the instinct coming quickly back to him, his head tilting just so as his tongue flicked out to trace over Zevran’s lips. The assassin seemed to come alive at that—crackling electricity in his arms—and his hands lifted to grip Fenris’s biceps. Fenris tugged him in with a hand at his waist and lost himself in Zevran’s mouth.

Isabela let out a wolf whistle when he at last pulled back. Zevran was looking slightly stunned, the warm brown of his cheeks and throat flushed a heated pink.

Fenris licked his lips and allowed himself a smile, and didn’t miss the way Zevran’s eyes tracked the motion. “You know, it’s a shame you’re not coming with us,” he said. To his surprise there was a bit more gravel in his voice than usual.

“I—yes,” Zevran said, still blinking away surprise. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Fenris released him, noting with flicker of smugness that Zevran seemed momentarily unbalanced. “I enjoyed working with you,” he said, stepping back towards the boat. “Good luck with the Crows. I’m sure we’ll see each other again someday.”

Zevran crossed the few feet of rock between them before Fenris could climb into the boat. Fenris had expected it. He caught him around the waist again and bent into a second kiss, deeper and more heated than the first.

Zevran was grinning when he pulled away. “I do hope that is a promise, my sweet.”

Fenris smirked. “Look me up the next time you’re in Tevinter,” he said. “It should be fairly simple—just follow the trail of dead slavers.”

“Are you two done flirting yet?” Isabela interrupted. “Not that this isn’t absolutely incredible, but we have the tide to catch.”

Reluctantly Fenris untangled himself from Zevran and vaulted into the boat, settling on the bench next to Eligia. The girl leaned against him companionably, slipping her hand into his, but the smile she leveled in his direction was downright cheeky.

“That was nice,” she said, perfectly imitating his deadpan. “Are you in love?”

Fenris looked up to catch Zevran’s eye as the sailors unshipped the oars and pushed off, and couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Not yet, he thought—but all he said, mildly, was, “Mind your own business.”

Eligia just giggled.

On the shore, Zevran raised a hand in farewell as the boats drew out to sea, and Fenris raised his in return.


End file.
